Things That Go Bump
by The Real Nowhere-Man
Summary: on hiatus Clark Kent accidentally kills Morgan Edge. Overcome with guilt and fear, he runs away again. This time, he ends up in California, where a sinister adventure awaits him.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: Okay, so this is going to be the beginning of my Voyager series. It is an AU of Smallville and will involve the crossover with many different fandoms. The first story in this series: Things that Go Bump, is a crossover with Buffy/Angel.

Okay, so one thing with this story is that Clark ends up in L.A. Now, the problem is, I've never been to L.A., so I'm essentially relying on the Internet to help me describe it. Inaccuracies are inevitable.

Also, my favorite superman origin story currently out there is Superman Birthright, and I borrow some things from there.

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, Angel, or any of the Characters.

_Clark Kent's family had owned a Sheepdog once, when he was much younger. Clark had loved that dog like a brother. Clark had never played with other children up till that point. His parents were much too afraid that something might happen. Clark loved his parents, but he loved them as that…parents. He wanted, no, needed friends his own age._

_ That dog: a spry, grayish Maremma Sheepdog named Max, still at the apex of its dog years when Clark was only five. Max had been Clark's only companion in the beginning f his life. Clark ran with that dog and played fetch with it for hours on end. He would watch Max lead cattle in and would sometimes even help. Getting down on all fours and barking, pretending he was a Sheepdog too. Max slept with Clark in his bed, but Clark's mother, Martha Kent, had to draw the line at letting the dog eat at the table, or allowing Clark to eat on the floor next to his pal._

_ Clark was six during a rapidly fading summer and he had been out in the yard playing fetch with Max, when he threw the stick as hard as he could. Just like so many other children who toss a frisby with all their might, to see how high hey could make it go. Clark, however, was no ordinary boy. The stick went hurtling into the air as if it had been shot from a cannon, and Clark ran after it in the hopes of retrieving it. Dirt and grass sprayed out from behind him as he sped through the fields faster than even the finest human athlete could dream of going, following a tiny dot moving against the solid blue of the cloudless sky._

_ Then suddenly, a bizarre and unpleasant feeling swept over him. Clark tripped over his own feet, the momentum of his speed causing him to be flung along the ground, skidding on dirt and rock and snapping wheat stalks as he went. He couldn't stand up, his scrapes stung, and his stomach churned, his very veins felt like they were writhing inside him._

_ Clark had never been hurt before now, and this sensation was new and horrible, he had to get out of here, he needed to get back to his mom and dad. But, he couldn't move, so he lay there, bruised and bleeding. His breath coming in quick and shallow as his growing fear causes him to start hyperventilating._

_ He laid there for what seemed like forever, confused and alone. What was happening? Where was he? Where was his mom? _

_ Clark saw something coming toward him. The image was blurry through his tears, like looking though a car window on a very rainy day._

_ The grayish smudge moved closer. Then Clark heard a whimper as something cold and wet nudged his cheek, and something rough and moist, like a soaked towel was rubbed against his face. Clark awoke completely, rapidly blinking tears from his eyes. When he focused he saw it. Max was there._

_ The dog had tracked his scent and come looking for him. Clark gave a cry of pure joy at seeing his companion._

_ In a display of the bizarre empathy animals' posses when someone is in danger, the dog grabbed Clark by the shirt and dragged him away._

_ The farther Clark got form that place, the better he felt. Soon the nausea was gone and the shallow scrapes had started to heal themselves._

_ When the dog put Clark down, Clark pulled the dog into an embrace, tears streaming down his cheeks as he sobbed openly a mixture of fear and relief. He buried his face in the dog's warm coat, pulling Max as close to him as possible. Desperately needing the comfort and support of his friend. _

_ He almost didn't hear the sound of the dog's yelp over the snap. It was loud and sickening, sounding right next to Clarks face._

_ Startled, Clark let go of Max, staring at the dog as it slouched and collapsed to the ground. Its back was bent at an odd angle where Clark had hugged him._

_ Clark simply stared at his friend, Max had stopped panting, his tail was still, and his dark brown eyes stared blankly into space._

_"Max?" Clark called to the dog. No response._

_"Max?" Clark asked again, shaking the dog softly this time._

_ "Come on Max, we need to get back home." Clark pleaded, shaking the dog more vigorously now._

_ "Please, come on Max. Please get up. I don't know how to get home. Help me!" Max didn't move. Clark knew, he didn't want to, but he knew. His only friend was dead. He had killed him._

_ Clark screamed; a piercing scream that scrapped the back of his throat on its way out. He screamed until he couldn't and then he collapsed, sobbing into Max's grey coat. His father found him like that. They buried Max that weekend, and Clark for the first time in his life, understood his parents' fear._

Describing the sensation of red kryptonite would be difficult for Clark. He wouldn't say he felt possessed, or out of control. On the contrary, he felt more control when on The Red than every before. His problems and morals didn't disappear with Red K, he simply stopped caring. He'd known exactly what he had been doing that entire time in Metropolis. Even when he remembered his actions under the influence, he had carried them all out with an unwavering conviction he'd never had before. Clark was shocked by how easy it was to slip back into the persona of Kal, even without the Red.

Clark knew there would be consequences to his recklessness in Metropolis. The blatant flaunting of his powers, while it had made perfect sense at the time, had Clark practically twitching in paranoia. Still, he was caught off guard when a car pulled up next to the barn and the window rolled down to reveal Morgan Edge.

Clark had just wanted to scare him, chase him off, at least until Clark could come up with a better plan. He had changed back into Kal because Kal was the only one that could do it. It was like flipping a switch in his head, Clark Kent, _flip_, Kal No-last-name. However, he wasn't Kal…not really. Clark had something that Kal didn't have. What Clark Kent had, was fear.

Slamming Edge into the car had seemed like a good idea at the time, nothing like a little physical violence to bring home a point. That was when fear made all the difference. The car crumpled like a soda can under the tire of an 18-wheeler as Clark brought Edge's body down on it with more force than he'd wanted. Clark let go immediately and stepped back, about to apologize to the biggest crime lord in Metropolis. Edge had been knocked unconscious instantly, and so had his driver when the steel of the car bent and smashed him in the head. Clark didn't move for a few minutes, and then he noticed Edge wasn't breathing.

Clark slowly put his trembling fingers to Edge's neck, looking for a pulse. There was none. Clark held it there. Still nothing, Morgan Edge was dead. Clark Kent had taken a human life.

The driver was still alive and Clark super-sped him to the hospital and deposited him inside the entrance. However, he was barely aware of what he was doing at the time. His thoughts were far away. _I killed someone._ He thought, _I killed someone._ That was pretty much the only intelligible thought in his brain for a good 20 minutes.

He soon found himself back at the scene of the crime, Morgan Edge's body practically enfolded by the metal of the car, like a gruesome cannibal taco. Clark almost laughed.

"Okay Clark," he said aloud, his voice helping to ground him. "You're getting delirious. Something needs to be done." He should tell his parents, he thought. But, how could he ever face them with this? They'd never look at him the same way again. He had caused enough trouble for the Kents as it was.

Clark ran a jerky hand through his hair, his breaths coming more rapidly in his rising panic. It wasn't until he felt something warm and wet on his fingers that he realized he'd been ripping some of his own hair out.

He had to get rid of it. He'd brought enough trouble to his family, to all of Smallville. He wouldn't burden them with this. He lifted the wreck, Morgan Edge and all, and ran. Clark ran as he'd never run before. He couldn't be sure in which direction or for how long, but it wasn't long enough.

When he stopped at a vacant beach, he finally put his burden down and stared at the body that had once been Morgan Edge. Clark grabbed one end of the car and rolled it so Morgan's body was completely wrapped up. Then he lifted the whole package and began to spin with it. He span around as fast as he could, kicking up a wicked dust tornado. Then he hurled the twisted mass with all his strength toward the ocean.

It shot off toward the horizon, breaking the sound barrier over water and causing a large wave to come crashing toward the shore. Clark was long gone however, having stopped briefly in a town to get his bearings (he'd run all the way to the west coast of Texas) and ran back home.

His parents hadn't come back yet. Clark all but collapsed onto the couch. What was he going to do now? He'd removed all trace of what had happened, all but the memory. Even as he closed his eyes, he saw it again. Morgan Edge's body crash into the car frame, bones snapping much louder than he remembered hearing them over the groaning of the flexing metal. He saw the quick look of shock on Morgan's face when Clark grabbed onto him. Clark knew he wouldn't be able to keep this from his parents. His mother always could tell when he was lying, and if he said nothing, it would show in other ways. They'd know something was up. Clark hadn't been sure, when he had returned from Metropolis, whether or not he'd even stay in Smallville. Now, he didn't' know how he could.

Clark was a blur as he ran about the house, stuffing things into a suitcase. Clothes, CDs, ipod, toothbrush, books, laptop, etc. He briefly considered maybe looking for another class ring. Red was very tempting right now, but ultimately, it was the reason he was in this situation to begin with. When he finished he was standing in the dinning room, starring at the table where he had eaten breakfast with his family for the past 16 years. There was a sheet of paper on the table, a blue ballpoint pen laying next to it.

Clark uncapped the pen and put it to the paper. What was he going to write? If he told them what happened, they'd only be worse off, right? _I'm already a murderer, what difference does lying make at this point?_ A voice from the back of Clark's mind rang out. He hesitated for a second more, before quickly scrawling out the message:

_ Something happened. Someone is dead. Don't worry, I've taken care of it. It was an accident, but it's still my fault. I can't stay here, not now. Don't try to find me. Don't worry, I'm not on Red._

_ I love you_

_ C_

Clark took one last, cursory glance around his home. Then, knowing he'd end up staying if he hesitated any longer, he took off. He ran west, not entirely sure where he wanted to go. He found himself in Los Angeles when it started getting late. The city wasn't that different from Metropolis. Sections of the city towered over others, made of clumps of skyscrapers, mostly corporate headquarters, government buildings and other logistical infrastructure. Radiating out from these knots of high rises were countless tall apartment buildings, shopping centers, recreation centers, etc. Moving out even further, you started getting into the suburbs. A cliff face covered inn redbrick homes were the slums. Clark could see the dilapidation of many of the buildings. Fading paint, missing bricks, missing windows, several clotheslines could be seen stretching from one building to another. He could see mountains in the horizon, something you didn't see in Metropolis.

The amount of traffic was horrible, and so was the pollution. Clark could see the thick smog and haze that enveloped the city even at night. However, L.A. was far more colorful than Metropolis. Undoubtedly due to the Hispanic influences, a great deal of buildings in L.A. were painted in bright colors, like reds and oranges and yellows. Clark found an out of the way motel, too exhausted to explore the city now. The outside of the single floor Motel was a faded orange color. He paid for his room in cash, the receptionist (a swarthy man with a bushy mustache and a beer belly made far more prominent by his white tank top) gave him a stern glare, but didn't say anything. He handed Clark the key with the number 8 written in green ink on a piece of tape stuck to the key.

Clark walked down the dimly lit hallway, looking at the blood red doors with brass numbers right above their peepholes. Odd numbers to his left, even numbers to his right. He stopped in front of the number 8, put in his key, and entered the room. The room was modest, but not lacking. There was one bed backed against the wall on the left, its white sheets neatly made. There was a desk parallel to the bed. There was no television or window, but there was a small bathroom.

Clark stepped into the room and locked the door behind him. He kicked off his shoes and put his suitcase and backpack down next to the bed. then collapsing on top of the bed, not even bothering to get under the sheets, Clark Kent cried.


	2. Vampire

**Author's note: **** Okay, next chapter.**

** Of course, the usual disclaimer, I don't own Angel, Smallville, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, any of the characters.**

** If anyone has any questions or comments, you can step into my office (the review page)**

* * *

As Clark lay in the bed, trying to sleep, he noticed noises. someone was turning in their sleep in the room next to him. A woman by the sound of it. Down the hall the receptionist was watching television, but it was mostly in Spanish so Clark couldn't make out much. Clark's brow furrowed in concentration. It was strange, it was like he heard each sound individually, and all at once at the same time.

Curiosity eventually got the better of him, and Clark settled himself. He slowed his breathing and concentrated solely on his hearing, trying to push it to its farthest. It was like a floodgate had been opened. All the sounds of the city exploded and rushed into him. Clark felt like he had spent his entire life listening to the world from the bottom of the deep end of a pool. The continuous honking of frustrated drivers, the roar of car engines, the words emanating from millions of television sets, groans of pain, gasps of pleasure, and a thousand, thousand conversations. Clark could hear every word being spoken in Los Angeles.

"...Need to get more milk from the store"..."Hey John, Hey Kevin"..."You know I love you right?"... "Hola Chiquita, como esta?"..."What the hell is your problem man?"..."so the preacher turns to the frog and says"..."I love you, Connor. Now get out of my house"..."hey, I know you keep saying that it isn't really any of my business but, are you _ever_ going to tell me about that thing with the Dwarf Goat?"

Clark's eyes shot open and he sat up in his bed. The noise receded quickly, but it was close at hand now. Clark knew that whatever pathway to his new ability he had opened, he could never close it again. Even now, he was barley aware of an omnipresent background static, all he needed to do was focus a bit and he could hear anything in probably a good hundred miles, maybe more. There was something else, he tried to tell himself he was just hearing things but, it sounded like people everywhere, all over the city, were screaming and crying for help. Under the constant rumble of traffic and snatches of television and radio, he thought he could hear brakes screeching, gunshots, and cries for mercy.

A tremendous despair crushed Clark down, heavier than even he could lift. How many people were there in this city? How many were in pain? How many were going to die before the sun came up? How many more would end up like Morgan Edge? Clark gripped his sheets tight and drew rapid, shallow breaths. He was afraid, he realized. _Don't be stupid, you have no reason to be afraid. None of these people can hurt you._ he thought to himself. At that exact moment, he realized that he wasn't afraid of them hurting him, he was afraid they were going to hurt _each other_.

Clark clasped both hands over his ears, trying to block out the sound. It didn't work, so he crashed his Ipod headphones into each ear and blasted music as loud as he could. That helped deaden the sound a bit, but not enough. Clark was no longer sure whether he was hearing anything, or his mind was playing tricks on him, but he still knew people were in danger. There were a good ten million people in L.A. ten million to Smallville's 45000. Not even Clark could help all these people. It was impossible, not even he was that fast. For every second he spent saving one person was a second another person would be in danger. So how could he possibly pick and choose who lived and who died? If he made himself responsible for one life, wasn't he responsible for all the lives. He couldn't do it, best to not even try, Clark said to himself again. Then came the scream. The scream of fear, of someone who knows their end has come, the scream of someone about to die.

"Like Hell!" Clark muttered under his breath. Yanking the headphones out by the cords, Clark exited his room, locking the door behind him, and strode briskly out of the motel. As soon as he stepped out of the motel, the world around him was robbed of motion as he switched to super speed. He ran after the source of the shriek but soon found himself stopping to dodge between the heavy foot traffic that existed despite the late hour. In his various dodges, his shoulder brushed against the side of a building, causing a dent in the wall. Clark realized he was in real danger of hurting someone and slowed to regular speed. Clark needed to find some other way to get around. The streets were almost as clogged as the sidewalks were. If only he could somehow rise above the street and bypass all this traffic, Clark thought. Clark turned into an abandoned alley and, checking once to make sure no one was looking, he leapt a good 50 feet to the roof of the building. Clark ran like this, jumping from building to building at super speed.

Soon enough he was on a building overlooking an alleyway where he was sure the cry had originated. There was a dark haired woman in a red dress and red stilettos running from a man in a black hoody that obscured his face. The pursuer moved with the speed of an Olympic athlete, and by the time Clark had jumped to the ground (if only he could somehow fall at super speed) he had already reached the woman and grabbed her arm. The woman screamed again.

"Hey!" Clark called out. The assailant turned to him and _growled_. Clark's exceptional vision allowed him to see the attacker's face. What he saw, stopped him in his tracks. The man's forehead was bunched-up with the eyebrows exceptionally bulgy. His eyes were an unnatural shade of yellow, and his teeth, were more like fangs. The deformed assailant snarled at Clark again and turned to face him completely, taking a stance like a wild animal defending its territory. He barred his fangs at Clark and lunged forward a good 20 feet. Clark grabbed the man by the throat and heard the man yelp as if he had just gotten a static shock.

"Run." Clark said to the woman, who was already making a beeline down the alley, having kicked off the heels and ran barefoot. Clark tossed the assailant into a wall hard enough to knock out a regular human. But, as Clark was soon learning, this guy was hardly a regular human. He got to his feet and swayed slightly, before correcting its balance and taking a fighting stance. He did not attack immediately however.

"What are you, some kind of demon?" came the man's snarling question. It caught Clark completely off guard.

"uhhh...what?"

"Look man, I don't want any trouble okay? This is my feeding ground, and you just ruined a perfectly good meal, why? What do you want?" Clark was repulsed by the man's words.

"what do you mean _a meal_? Were you going to _eat_ that women?"

"well duh buddy, I'm a Vampire, that's kind of my thing."

"A...a...vampire? What, wait...what?"

"come on man, I would've thought the bumpy face and fangs would've given it away. I'm a vampire, you know...creature of the night? The unholy dead, risen from the grave and feasts on human blood. You aren't the brightest demon are you?"

Clark just stood there looking at the man for a minute, before he panicked and blurred over to the vampire and knocked it cold with an open-palm smack to the head. The vampire crumpled to the ground and Clark noticed that something was missing. In all the confusion he hadn't noticed it before, but he did now, and focused on the sound, or rather lack o sound, of the man's heartbeat. Clark stepped back as if struck. Vampires? Meteor enhanced humans was one thing...but Vampires? Clark turned to leave, recognizing how totally out of his depth he was when he thought of something. If that man really was a vampire, and he just left him lying there, would it die when the sun came up. That would be like murder wouldn't it, like Morgan Edge? Or would it? This vampire had tried to eat a person, he couldn't just let it go, and the police were probably not going to be able to do anything about it. Still, it had gone after that woman because it needed to eat her to survive. He couldn't punish someone for something they were born with could he? It would be rather hypocritical. Clark gave a sigh of frustration and ran his hands through his hair. This was too much, he couldn't deal with this, not now.

Clark went over to a fence behind a garbage can at the far end of the alley. He pulled the fence out of the ground and rolled it up and placed it over his shoulder. Then, he went back, picked up the vampire, and threw him over the other shoulder. Then he super sped away, and soon found himself up in the Rockies. Finding a rather sheer cliff face far away from anything, he used his heat vision to burrow a cave deep into the side of a cliff. He went inside, far enough that he knew no sunlight would enter. Then, using heat vision again to melt the metal of the fence to fashion bonds that he used to tie up the vampire. Upon closer inspection, Clark noticed that the Vampire had a red mark, almost like a sunburn, in the shape of a hand, in the precise location where Clark had grabbed him by the throat. Clark decided to look into it later. He left the vampire bound in the cave, and for good measure, sealed the entrance with some boulders.

"From now on" Clark said aloud to the empty mountain air, "From now on, until I figure out what's what, I'm just going to tie everyone up."


	3. Angel

**Author's note...not like anyone is really reading it or anything:** Well, I had a review asking me about the pairings in this Fic. I have no idea. I haven't given it any thought. So, feel free to send me your opinions and I'll think about them...just remember that Clark is still, technically, Jailbait.

Also, the disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, Angel, Smallville, or any of the characters. I do however, own the Dwarf Goat...but frankly, that's none of your business.

* * *

_Clark Kent was running. He wasn't sure if he was running to something, or away from something, but he was running fast. He was somewhere in a city, though he didn't know if it was Metropolis or L.A. On his way to wherever he was headed, he kept seeing people standing on the roofs of buildings. The edges of the roofs were crammed with them, all looking down. _They were going to fall_ Clark realized. He ran to them as they began, one by one, to fall from the edges of the roofs. Clark didn't know how he did it, but he flew. He was in the air and kept pushing them back as they fell, like a grim domino line. But as he saved some and went off to rescue others, the ones he had saved simply walked back up to the edge and fell again. Clark was zipping back and fourth all over the city picking up people and carrying them to safety. Then, he missed one. A man fell, and Clark missed him by a fraction of an inch. The man hit the round and blood flowed as the sound of cracking bones was heard._

_"No!" Clark screamed, rushing to the downed man. When he finally reached him, he saw the man was no other than Morgan Edge. Edge's body wouldn't stop bleeding; pretty soon it was up to Clark's knees. Clark tried to fly above it but found himself grounded. The blood rose higher and higher, up to his waist, then his shoulders. Clark struggled and thrashed trying to keep himself upright but it was no use. Soon Clark's head went under completely._

Clark Kent bolted up in his bed in the Motel. Clark couldn't see if it was dark out due to the lack of a window, but the glowing red digits of the alarm clock informed him that it was 9:34 P.M. It had been a week since Clark had come to L.A., a week since he had discovered the Vampire, a week since he had traded his days for nights. When darkness fell on the city, danger was everywhere. Clark soon found himself unable to ignore the sounds of distress his new ability picked up. Most of his nights were now filled with a frantic running from place to place in an attempt to keep as many people from getting hurt as possible, then coming back to the Motel in the early hours and collapsing into bed. He had barley had time to investigate his "captives". Over the course of the week he had taken another 57 vampires to the cave in the Rocky Mountains, all bound in metal, as well as at least 13 other creatures that weren't vampires at all, but claimed to be Demons. In this last week Clark had found himself missing his friend Chloe sorely. She was an up-an-coming intrepid reporter with a penchant for the bizarre, she would love this.

Clark sighed. _I can't go to Chloe, I can't go to anyone. I'm on my own, I chose to be._ Clark thought, knowing that it didn't make him feel any better. Clark's research on vampires and demons in the library and the Internet had yielded no solid results, or rather, too many solid results with contradicting information. Clark didn't know what was fact and what was fiction. He had managed to extract some things from the demons and vampires. Apparently, Demons were real, as was magic, and a whole lot of other craziness that had sent Clark's head whirling. Denial had been the immediate reaction...until he had told himself that he was an Alien who crash-landed on earth surviving the cataclysmic destruction of his home planet. Still, the world had turned into a much darker place for Clark, and the revelation about the supernatural wasn't the only thing that had to do with it. Very good people had raised Clark, and he had always known how lucky he was to have his parents. He had never realized however, how unique they were. In this city, every one was walking with their head down, just trying to get from place to place. They were literally relying on the good will of every person they walked by on the street. Every one in this city wanted something, and many of them had no problem hurting others, or themselves to get it.

Clark walked into his small personal bathroom and splashed his face with cold water before stepping out. He gave a nod to the receptionist, he was very thankful for the man's respect of privacy, not questioning where Clark went at night or why he got back in the mornings. Truthfully, Clark wasn't sure what he was going to do. The money he had wouldn't last him much longer, so he might need to get a job...or something. It had hit him recently how ill prepared he was for his. Clark walked for a bit until he was sure no one was looking, then he took off at super-speed into the night.

* * *

All things considered, it was wrapping up to be a slow day. Two muggings stopped, a drunken man pulled out of the way of a car, and then the alarm went off. It was a security alarm coming from the other side of the city. Clark, recognizing there was probably a heist of some sort in progress sped over to the building. Somewhere along the way, he heard the sound of an electrical discharge and the alarm stopped. Clark soon found himself inside the Chandler's Auction House. A scan with his X-ray vision revealed four figures in a vault of some kind. Two males and two females judging by the skeletal structure. One male was lying flat on his back, with the other male crouched over him. The two females were standing; one backed up against the wall with a bag of presumably stolen goods, and the other was blocking the exit to the vault. Clark also counted six armed men he took to be guards laying tied up in a closet.

"He's dead." said the male bent over the other one. Clark's stomach tightened at the thought that he had, yet again, failed to save someone. He jumped to the roof and found the entrance the thieves had used. He heard one of the females saying "No, no." and sped down to the vault. He saw there were two females and two males as he'd suspected. The shorter one with classes was frozen in a running position heading toward the downed African American. A pale man with spiked hair and a dark trench coat was leaned over the African American, but his gaze was on an attractive brunette in close fitting red leather and dark black gloves. The gloved woman was holding a bag in her hands.

Clark knew that he could stop the heist right here. It would be simple enough, just knock everyone out, grab the man on the floor and make a break for the hospital. But Clark couldn't hear the man's heart beat at all, he didn't have any time to spare. Clark ran to the man, scooped him up in his arms as gently as possible, and ran back out the exit. Then, in a display of incredible precision, Clark reached a hospital parking lot in one jump. Clark ran at a normal human pace into the lobby of the hospital.

"Help!" he said "help, this man's been electrocuted!" Several of the hospital staff came and took the man from him, checking his pulse and speaking rapidly to each other in medical jargon that Clark didn't understand. Clark backed away quickly, and was about to super-speed away when he remembered that the hospital lobby would have cameras. Clark noticed that someone was talking to him, asking him what happened. Clark had found that when it came to lying, simpler was often better, and if you feigned ignorance, the people you were lying to would fill in the blanks with their own minds.

"I'm not sure what happened." Clark began. "I was walking along the street near here, and this guy was walking toward me. Then he sort of, tripped, and his hand flew out and touched a lamppost. There must have been some faulty wiring because the post zapped him hard enough to knock him back. I checked his pulse and got nothing, saw he wasn't breathing, and carried him hear as fast as I could. "The nurse seemed to accept his story for the time being, but told him to stay because they might need to ask some more questions. Clark nodded, but as soon as no one was looking, he backed out of the hospital doors and took off.

Clark stayed in the vicinity of the hospital until he was sure the man, Charles Gunn, as he had been identified, was all right. Then he headed back to the auction house, but wasn't surprised to find that the thieves had left. Then Clark got to thinking that he should be remembering something. Something was bothering him, but he wasn't entirely sure what it was. It had something to do with what happened in the vault. Then it hit him; there had been four people in that room, yet he had only heard two heartbeats. Both the women had had them, and Charles Gunn didn't have one on account of being zapped...but the other man, the spiky haired one with the dark coat; he hadn't had one at all. Clark was certain that this man was a vampire, but he couldn't be sure of his own memory. Maybe he simply had vampires on the brain. He had to be sure, so he closed his eyes and listened, feeling the expansion of his hearing that occurred whenever he stopped using his eyes. He soon found the voice of both the woman with the glasses and the dark haired man and sped closer to their location. They were in an old hotel called the Hyperion, and surely enough, Clark only heard one heartbeat.

"What the hell happened Angel?" the woman

"I don't know Fred." the vampire.

"Who was that woman, was she a demon?" Clark became even more alert now. These people were aware of demons, then that girl must know she was in the presence of a vampire, right?

"I don't think so...I think she was just a human with powers."

"Like that telekinetic girl you guys met before."

"Yeah, except this girl could somehow control electricity. She used it to get passed all the security systems."

"But what did she do to Charles!" the woman, now identified as Fred, sounded like she was on the verge of tears, and Clark felt guilt bubble inside him.

"Don't worry, we'll find him." the vampire, now identified as Angel, spoke in a low and soothing voice. He seemed different from other vampires and Clark found himself pausing to reconsider his original plan of blurring in there and whisking him away to the cave. At that moment, a phone rang inside the hotel and Angel answered it.

"Angel Investigations, you've called at a bad time I'm-" Angel was interrupted by a much deeper voice

"Well you'd better make some time for an injured comrade! What else does a creature of the night have to do this late?"

"Gunn! Where are you? What happened?"

"I'm in a hospital. I don't know how I got here. Last thing I remember is that thief chick put her hands on me and the rest is black. The nurses told me some tall dark-haired dude carried me in and then vanished. At first I thought it was you until they told me he was wearing flannel."

"Okay, hold on, Fred and I are coming."

Clark watched as the vampire and the woman exited the hotel, and he super-sped through the door right before it closed. He waited in the absolute darkness until he saw their skeletons get in a Convertible and drive off. Where the reception desk should be he found a stand with business cards for an "Angel Investigations" A quick tour of the hotel reveled even more strangeness. There was a cabinet full of medieval weapons, several books (some in bizarre languages) about various supernatural subjects, and case files inside cabinets for such things as 'poltergeist removal', and 'demon infestations'. Clark came to the conclusion that these guys were some sort of paranormal detective agency. Clark was rather relieved that now there could very well be someone that could help him with his dilemma...but that still didn't explain the vampire. Why was a vampire working for a paranormal detective agency? The others clearly knew he was a vampire, was he a good vampire? Did such things exist?

In all honesty, Clark had mostly just been grabbing vampires and tossing them in the cage when he saw them, he hadn't really bothered to find out anything on their nature. Then again, when he had found all these vampires, they were in the process of attacking humans. Clark soon found a room that he figured to be the vampire's, due to the fact that there was no way for sunlight to get in. There were several art pieces, some weapons, books, and in a mini-fridge, Clark found packets of blood. Clark examined the blood closer and realized it wasn't human's blood at all, but pig's blood.

Then Clark had an idea. Grabbing some of the blood from the mini-fridge and a business card from the lobby, Clark super-sped away to the cave in the Rockies. Moving several boulders our of the way, Clark steeped into the pitch darkness and was greeted by a cacophony of cries and grunts from the demons, the rattle of the vampires struggling against their bonds, threats, cries for mercy, and…oddly enough, pledges of eternal loyalty. Clark found his first vampire, Chuck, and dragged him outside.

Chuck was in a pitiful state. He was pale as the moon and twitching like an addict. Clark was hit with a pang of guilt and wondered if vampires could starve to death. Truthfully, he had been rather irresponsible. He had tried to avoid this place as often as he could…it was still so weird to him. But no more, something was going on and Clark had never been the type to shut his eyes and covers his hears, pretending he didn't know.

Clark brought out the Styrofoam cup with the blood and Chuck stilled himself. Then, adopting his best 'bad cop' voice, Clark said:

"Thirsty Chuck?"

"Okay, okay! I'll talk; I'll tell you anything you want to know! Please just feed me!"

Clark held the cup right under Chuck's nose, but pulled it away at the last second.

"What can you tell me about a vampire named Angel?"

Chuck growled and switched to what was known as 'game face', his eyes turned yellow, his fangs protruded, and his face became bumpy.

"Angel!" He snarled, "Angel is a freak of nature. A vampire with a soul."

"A soul?" Clark asked, perplexed. For him, a soul had always been what it was to so many other people: an insubstantial idea that may or may not exist, a question better left to the spiritual. But then again, he had previously thought that vampires were myths too.

"That's right." Continued Chuck "Back when he used to be called Angelus, like 150 years ago. He was the badest of the bad. He was famous among vamps for his evil, in a league all his own."

"So, what happened?"

"He killed this gypsy girl and her tribe punished him, by cursing him with a soul so he could suffer guilt for his sins. Now he fights on the side of the fluffy-bunny people. Word on the street is that he was even boning the Slayer for a while."

"The Slayer?"

"Wow, you're really not from around here, are ya buddy? You from some other dimension or something, come to scope out some new turf for your tyrant warlord back home?"

"I'm not you're buddy. Now do you want the blood or not?" Clark asked, pulling the cup back even further.

"Okay, okay, yeesh…what crawled up your butt and lay its hell spawn?" The Slayer is essentially our boogeyman…or bogeywoman, rather. Some vamps aren't even sure she exists, but let me tell you, a couple buddies of mine went up to Sunnydale for a weekend, never came back down."

"This Slayer, what is she?

"As far as anyone knows, she's a human. But some ancient mystic stuff gives her superpowers so she can be a champion for good or whatever. One girl in all the world who will stand against the Vampires, Demons, and forces of darkness. Though, word is there are two of them now. No clue how that happened. They even say the second Slayer is in L.A., but I don't think so, that's the kind of thing a guy like me would know about."

Clark watched the vampire eye the cup in his hand. He tried to think of something else to ask, but couldn't. That was probably for the best. His head was swimming already, he needed time to process. Clark tilted the cup toward Chuck who sniffed it and recoiled.

"Eww, is that pig's blood? Stuff is nasty!

"Okay, well if you don't want it..."

"No, no, okay, I want it!"

Once Chuck had drained the cup, Clark took him inside and resealed the cave. Clark wasn't sure what he intended to do with his new information. He needed time to think, but before that, he still had one loose end to clear up.

Searching for that thief had proved to be a bit difficult; zipping around the city via rooftops trying to find that arch shaped thing that was stolen using x-ray vision had taken a while. Eventually he found it in a tall building. There were quite a few people in there: Angel and the thief seemed to be trapped in an elevator (the fact that Clark had been able to recognize them by their skeletons was a little unsettling) as well as a number of security personnel and an older man. Using super-hearing, Clark fund out that the older man was the one that hired the thief to steal the arch in the first place, and since the job didn't go quite as planned, he was going to kill both the thief and Angel by filling the elevator with gas.

Clark pulled the black ski mask he had formerly used as Kal to rob banks over his face. After Charles Gunn had identified him as "Tall, dark-haired guy wearing Flannel" Clark decided it might be wiser to use some sort of disguise when moving about the city. So he had switched to Kal's old attire: Black biker jacket, black pants, black shirt, and ski mask.

Clark took a jump at super-speed from an adjacent building, which took him in through the window. As soon as he touched the floor he was already on the move. Running over to the elevator door he simply pried the door apart, much to the shock of everyone present. Everyone was still for a moment and Clark could feel all eyes on him. Angel was bent over the thief girl and looked up at him.

"Who..." he started to say

Then the older man's security force rushed Clark who, using great care (they were still human after all) knocked them all out with a series of quick taps to the forehead. As Clark turned, he saw the thief advancing on the older man.

"I expect to get screwed," she said "Professional thief, hazard of the biz."

"Just wait a second, please..." the older man pleaded

"What I don't appreciate, Elliot is being called a freak. That's _my_ word, and I get cranky when people like you use it."

Clark had stepped forward to intercept her but Angel held up a hand to stop him.

"Gwen, think about this." Angel tried to reason with her.

"Ever been struck by lighting Elliot?" the thief girl, now identified as Gwen, ignored Angel. "I've been struck by lightning 14 times. It's not my fault, I just attract it. You know what else attracts lightning?" She asked the older man, now identified as Elliot, extending her hand toward him. "Maggoty little norms like you."

"So you're a freak, Boo-hoo. So what?" Angel interrupted, catching Gwen off guard.

"_Excuse me?_" she spat.

"I think you've already figured out I'm not the poster boy for normal." Angel continued. Any doubts Clark had still been harboring cleared up. This Angel guy was not evil. Clark moved to get the stolen piece unnoticed.

"Sometimes, you got to let go." The sound of a fist connecting solidly with a face caused Clark to turn around and see Angel stop Gwen from deep-frying Elliot. Okay, not evil...just a little...hands on.

"You're really going to use that axis thing to find her aren't you?" _wait, her?_ Clark paused, the stolen merchandise in his hands. If he wanted, he could turn right now and return this. It's what he should do, stealing was wrong. But Angel didn't seem like a criminal, so if he had stolen this object, there must be a reason.

"I figured, anyone that bad at stealing stuff's got to be doing it for love. Bummer." Gwen walked away, and Clark didn't stop her. He probably should have, she was a person with dangerous powers and the will to use them for crime. But Clark knew that the police wouldn't be able to contain her, and he couldn't lock her away with the demons. He also couldn't help but feel empathy for the girl. A human with bizarre powers who felt alienated by them, Clark himself could very well have ended up like her if things had gone differently. He would never admit whether or not her flowing brown hair and shimmering blue eyes had anything to do with his decision to let her go, the world may never know.

Angel then turned to Clark, almost like he was just remembering Clark was there.

"You're the one that saved Gunn aren't you?" Clark's eyes widened. How had he been identified so easily? Clark hesitated for a moment, and then removed his mask.

"How..." he began to ask

"Well, I saw the way you moved back there, I figured that maybe you could've been the thing that grabbed gun and got him to the hospital in the blink of an eye."

Angel moved closer and eyed he bag in Clark's hand longingly.

"Please...I need that."

"For what?"

"Someone I care about a great deal is missing. I need that to find them."

Clark looked at him for a good long while, then relented, handing angel the bag.

"Okay, you can use it to find your friend, but after you're done, I'm taking it back to the auction house."

Angel opened the bag and removed the Axis from inside it, looking it over. When he looked back up, Clark was gone.

* * *

Clark was standing outside the Hyperion hotel's front entrance and knocked on the door. He had been listening in and had heard that Angel's friend Cordelia had ascended to some higher plane or something. It really did nothing but further fuel Clark's confusion. The door was opened by the petite, bespectacled woman named Fred.

"Angel investigations, how can I help you?" Clark could easily see over the slender woman and saw Angel had spotted him and was coming over.

"It's you." He said.

"I've come to get that thing."

"You know this guy Angel?" asked Charles Gunn. Angel looked first at Clark, as if he were asking permission. Clark nodded after a moment, and Angel turned back to his friend.

"This is the guy that took you to the hospital."

"Whoa, seriously." Charles Gunn took a couple steps back, clearly not expecting that. Fred had moved out of the doorway and Clark stepped into the room. Angel held up a finger, motioning for him to wait then disappeared up a flight of stairs. The Great Awkward Silence of Doom entered the room as soon as Angel left it. Charles Gunn and Fred simply looked at Clark, then at each other, then back at Clark. They were anxious, he could tell, and he would be lying if he said that their fear, while understandable, didn't dishearten him a bit.

"So..." Fred began.

"So..." Charles Gunn repeated.

Nothing happened. Nothing happened again. Nothing continued happening, then bowed and exited stage left, only to be called back for an encore. Nothing recited the entire memoirs of its life, consisting mostly of nothing...which was what was happening in that room.

"Um...thanks for...uhh, saving me." Charles Gunn began, trying to make a crack in the ice, which Clark simply sealed right back up by not saying anything, simply giving a tight smile and nodding.

The triumphant return of Nothing. Nothing versus Mothra. Nothing happens in Space.

"So...I guess, you're some kind of demon or something?" Fred began; hoping a question into their guest's nature would help ease the nerves in the room.

"Uhh..." was Clark's answer, which turned out to be a precursor to the resurrection of the dreaded Count Nothing.

"I-if you aren't...you know, c-comfortable talking about it..."

At that moment Angel entered the room with the Axis and handed it over to Clark, who took it in his hands. Now what?

"Those were some pretty nice moves you pulled back there." Angel said, before looking him in the eye and asking, "Who are you?"

The three in the room turned into living statues as Clark's mind kicked into super-gear. He needed to make a decision now, what was he going to do. He simply wasn't knowledgeable enough to deal with the supernatural. These people could help, and he could help them. They could probably use his skills, and he could use their knowledge.

_And then what?_ Came a voice from within him.

_And then...and then..._

_What, do you think you guys will all become friends? Buddies in the fight against the forces of darkness? Don't forget why you came here to begin with. These guys fight monsters. They kill inhuman creatures that kill humans. Creatures like vampires, creatures like you. You don't deserve anything but solitude._

_But I can help here, help save people._

_They've been doing that long before you came along._

_But..._

_Murderer._

To Angel, Gunn, and Fred, it seemed like their guest had vanished with the wind.


	4. See No Evil

**Author's Note:** Okay, so I know that in Smallville, Clark doesn't have his 'aura vision' thing...I actually took that out of Superman: Birthright

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Smallville, or any of the characters.

Clark stepped into the motel after another night's patrol and nodded to the receptionist, who was watching the news on a Spanish channel. It was amazing that that guy always seemed to be there whenever Clark got back. Clark had actually taken to wondering if the man was atomically fused to the chair behind the reception desk. His thoughts were interrupted by the news broadcast:

_"Lex Luthor cheats death once again."_

Clark had learned a long time ago that, using a combination of super-speed and his apparently eidetic memory, he could learn large quantities of information at a time. Considering that L.A. had a much more multilingual population than Smallville, he had decided to learn Spanish and some other languages, going to libraries and memorizing entire dictionaries in minutes. For the largest part of his life his powers had been his anathema, separating him from everyone else, but he had to admit that sometimes they could be pretty cool.

Clark didn't pause to watch the news broadcast, instead moving along to his room and listening to the story about how an unidentified sniper had taken a shot at Lex while he was standing in a parking lot. He shut his door behind him and felt the same old illogical anger build up. He knew that he couldn't be everywhere, couldn't protect everyone. Hell, he could barely keep everyone in one city safe. How could he possibly protect Lex when he was in another state?

But some part of him, the part that would tell him that the meteor shower was his fault, the one that blamed him for the death of Lana's parents and all the other horrible things, still said, _'you should've been there; you should've done something'._ Clark spent the next five minutes trying to convince himself of what a bad idea it was and that it couldn't possibly end well, but soon enough he was out the door and on his way to Smallville.

* * *

Clark realized that he was becoming disturbingly good at the whole "unseen stalker in the shadows" deal. He had managed to spy on Lex and pretty much everyone else in town without anyone noticing his presence.

Apparently, this sniper guy had been using Chloe's "Wall of Weird" to identify potential meteor freaks and kill them. It was Smallville's own unique brand of hate crime.

Clark had found the sniper without much difficulty. It was rare in Smallville to hear the sound of gunshots, and Clark had gotten there in time to stop another death. Clark heard the shot and had started running while the bullet was still barely out of the barrel. He had plucked the tiny piece of lead out of the air, and then he came up behind the sniper and knocked him unconscious.

After leaving the guy, gun and all, at the sheriff's office, Clark had gone snooping around outside the castle. Lex seemed oddly calm for someone who had almost been assassinated, but then, that was Lex. Clark had been very tempted to go to Lex and speak to him. He figured Lex would probably not tell his parents about the encounter; Clark recalled Lex offering a place where they could stay when Clark had first been infected by Red Kryptonite and had gone to him and told him of his great escape plan. Lex had grown up in the city, if anyone could help Clark get his head back on straight, it would probably be Lex. Maybe he could even tell him about what had happened to Morgan Edge...maybe Lex would be able to forgive him.

'_What difference would forgiveness make? Would it undo the thing you did? Would it make it any less bad?'_ came the persistent, self-loathing voice in the back of Clark's head.

_I can't take this. I'm going to go crazy if I don't tell someone. _

_Now you're just being selfish, forcing someone else to carry the burden of your mistake._

Clark sighed and left.

* * *

Clark found Lana and Chloe in the Talon, recognizing them by nothing more than their skeletons. It was hard to hear their voices again. He missed them both tremendously.

Lana was blaming herself, thinking she hadn't done enough for him and just being generally miserable. Chloe was trying to reassure her, tell her that he had changed, and whatever his damage was, if he couldn't deal that was his problem. Clark could tell she was lying, that she didn't really believe it, even if it was the truth. He wished he could go in there and reassure them that this didn't have anything to do with them...but he couldn't, so he just watched them until Chloe left, and then he watched Lana's petite skeleton move about the coffee house serving drinks to all her skeleton patrons for the better part of an hour. It was two parts grim, one part comical. Clark wished he could see her face and not just her skeleton, but he knew if he did that, it would just make leaving more difficult.

He finally managed to pull himself away and went to look for Pete. He found his oldest friend talking to a pretty blonde girl outside a store. Clark smiled and turned away, feeling voyeuristic.

His feet inevitably led him home, but he didn't know if he was relieved or disappointed to find that his folks weren't there. The gate wasn't locked, and the truck wasn't in the driveway. They might've gone to market; he could look for them, but decided against it.

He strode through the open gateway with a new appreciation of the faith it took in your neighbors, and people in general, to just leave a gate open like that, inviting anyone to come in. In big cities everyone walked with their head down, just hoping that the next person to pass them on the street wouldn't pull a gun on them. There everything was locked, bolted, and had electric barbed wire around it, including some of the people.

Clark soon found himself up in his loft, marveling at how much quieter it was in the country. He didn't hear any screams, cries, screeching tires, or gunshots. His good mood vanished as he got to thinking about how many people had died in L.A. since he had left. How many people had died in the much closer Metropolis, or in other cities all over the world? So many people dying, and here he stood, not able to do anything, not even really wanting to. It was so much easier to remain aloof from the world's troubles out here, so far from them.

'_I want to help people, but even I'm not strong enough to save everyone. I understand that, but I still get angry with myself for not being strong enough. Then I get angry with myself, for getting angry with myself. It's a vicious cycle.'_ Clark thought.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" he asked aloud, knowing no answer would come.

Clark's nostalgia trip eventually led him to the Kawatchee cave. He had always felt a sense of peace here and had spent a great deal of time looking at the pictographs, looking for a connection to his origins. He had often wondered about the first Kryptonian who had visited this place, nearly four hundred years ago. How had he known Clark would come to earth? Was Clark even really the one the pictures were talking about? Then a voice echoed through the cave - the voice that had been the bane of Clark's existence for three years.

"Welcome, Kal-El."

"You!" Clark yelled. He had thought he'd be rid of Jor-El when he'd destroyed the ship. This had to be Karma.

"I just can't win, can I?"

Clark sat down on a large rock and put his head in his hands.

"What is wrong, Kal-El?"

Clark laughed, but there was no humor. It was the frustrated, angry laugh of those who laugh to keep from screaming.

"You want to know what's wrong, do you?! I'll tell you what's wrong; I'm going crazy!" Clark stood up and began pacing.

"I killed someone. It was an accident, and he was a bad guy, but it doesn't matter, he was still a person. Everything that had been piling up on me finally weighed too much. The meteor shower, I guess I'd always considered it _my_ meteor shower, mom's baby, then Morgan Edge. It was too much, I figured they'd be better off without me. But since then I've seen a much darker side to people and learned of the existence of demons. I want to help people, but I don't know how anymore. Things used to be much clearer, black and white. Now, it's all muddled." Clark collapsed back onto the rock, his voice much quieter now.

"Do you seek forgiveness?" came the voice of Jor-El.

"I'm sure everyone would forgive me. But I couldn't forgive myself. And I don't think I ever will. Besides, I couldn't risk...It was an accident the first time, accidents happen. That's exactly what I'm afraid of...what if another accident happens, only this time it isn't some crime lord, but someone I love?"

"Then perhaps you shouldn't forgive yourself." Jor-El responded. "Do not forgive yourself, but learn from this experience. You have taken a life, Kal-El, and you have found it distasteful. Hold on to that memory, and use it to prevent you from ever doing it again."

Clark was silent for a moment, wondering. Was this another ploy of Jor-El's? Was he trying to make Clark trust him so he'd be easier to manipulate?

"Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?" Clark finally asked.

"Because you are my son, Kal-El."

"Could've fooled me." Clark's retort was met with silence.

"I know you have seen my actions as extreme, Kal-El, but I have always done what I thought best for you...try to see things from my perspective. You are Krypton's last son, my son. Our whole world was ending, and though I fought it, your mother and I both knew it was inevitable."

"My mother?"

"Yes, Lara was her name. She was abrilliant woman, and had a heart which shone more intensely than even the sun on this Earth. We knew it was too late for Krypton, but we could still save you. But I was afraid, Kal-El."

"Afraid? Afraid of what?"

"I was afraid for you, Kal-El; I knew you would grow up in this world with powers that would make you like a god. Your difference would alienate you. I knew you would feel a solitude and sadness I could not imagine. You would be all alone in a world full of violence and pain, full of people who would want to exploit you, and people who would fear and try to destroy you. That is why I sent you to the Kents."

Clark looked up in shock. "What do you mean _sent_?"

"That you were found by Jonathan Kent was no accident, Kal-El. I myself have been to Earth before. There I encountered the father of Jonathan Kent, and found him to be a man of great moral fortitude. I hoped that if the son were at all like the father, then that family could love and watch over you as your mother and I could not. I wanted, above all else, to ensure your survival, Kal-El. Nothing else mattered. I was harsh, and I brought you much adversity, because it would make you stronger. I myself could not be there to protect you, guide you, teach you...Rao, I'm not even truly your father. I am simply a machine with his memories. So I let the Kents tend to your heart and spirit, while I provided obstacles for you to overcome, obstacles that I hoped would make you strong enough to survive whatever path you chose to take. You will never know how much it hurt me to play the villain in your life, my son."

The cave became filled with meditative silence. Clark didn't think he'd ever heard Jor-El speak so much, or ever about himself. This was the first time Clark had ever considered that Jor-El had once been a person, not just a god-like, disembodied voice, hell-bent on having him take over the world.

Once, Jor-El had been alive. Once, he had laughed, and loved, and hated, and feared, just like Clark and everyone else.

"This wasn't the way, Jor-El." Clark finally spoke up. "If you wanted me to embrace my Kryptonian heritage, you shouldn't have antagonized me to it. How could I possibly be proud of my Kryptonian side, when all I've seen of it has been you, and your behavior?" Clark stood up and, lacking a face to direct his words to, addressed the ceiling. "I think maybe I get it. You were scared, scared of what would happen to me. You wanted to prepare me for the world the best way you knew how. But you're not infallible, Jor-El, and you made a mistake. But it isn't too late for us to reverse all this. I still want to know about who I am, where I come from, but you need to accept that you can't force me to learn. I'll come into it in my own time."

"I have underestimated you, my son. Jonathan Kent has raised you well. You are wise beyond your years."

"Thank you, father."

"Now, Kal-El, tell me of these demons."

Clark had started pacing again. "I always thought they were just myths, you know, stories people made up. But I discovered recently that humans aren't the only sentient species on this planet. So far, pretty much all the ones I've encountered have been trying to harm humans. I couldn't bring myself to kill them, so I've been locking them up."

"What has prevented you from killing them?"

Clark was a little taken aback. "They're living things; I can't just...kill them."

"Yet do they not harm humans?"

"Well yes, but, some of them can't help it. For some of them, humans are their natural food source. But I can't just let people die!" Clark ran a hand through his hair and exhaled slowly as he tried to order his thoughts. "I can't kill these things because they're different because, well, it's wrong. But for some of these creatures, the only way they can _survive_ is by killing humans, and if I stop them, it would essentially be condemning them to death. I feel like I would be playing god, making choices about who can live and who can die."

"There is something that you must come to understand, Kal-El: Morality is not as subjective as you believe. Perception of morality is, but make no mistake, Kal-El, Evil does exist. There are beings in this universe that exist on solely one side of the moral compass. They do not have the freedom of humans and Kryptonians and other sentient creatures to choose to commit evil; it is simply what they are. These creatures need to be destroyed, there is no way around it, for they are beyond redemption. I can show you how to find true Evil, so you never need worry about whether you kill unjustly. But, honoring our agreement, I can only show you, if you are ready to learn."

Clark hesitated for a moment, then his resolve returned stronger than he had felt it in a long time. "Show me."

* * *

Clark Kent's world had become a haze of color. Clark understood that many of his powers were underdeveloped, because he had always been afraid of pushing them to their limits. Now Jor-El had shown him how to fully open his sight and see far beyond his simple x-ray vision. He could freely toggle his sight between any of the many wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum or even perceive them all at the same time. He walked through the fields of Smallville in a daze, seeing everything awash in background radiation and light waves invisible to the human eye.

He saw colors he would make names for, if it weren't for the fact that he was the only one that could see them. He could see radio transmissions and signals from satellites. He had learned to control his x-ray vision; no longer was he limited to seeing skeletons, but could see through objects in full Technicolor like he had the first time the power awakened and he had gotten a peek at the girls' locker room.

He could stand in the middle of a field and count the scratches on a bolt in the plating of a satellite. He could see each individual cell on the leaves of plants, could see inside them, watching the organelles go about their business preparing for mitosis.

Yet that was not the most bizarre thing. No, the strangest aspect of his new sight was that Clark could see life. At least, that's what he thought it was. All living things now had this glow about them, a halo of colors, some completely unknown to humans. Clark didn't know if this was the soul or an aura or what, but he knew that it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and when it was gone, it left in its wake something dark and empty, something that filled Clark with anguish to look at.

Clark didn't know if his new vision had some direct link to the emotional processing centers of his brain, or if his ability to truly perceive how beautiful and fragile life was had simply overwhelmed him. He had seen death before, and it had unnerved him, but now, it was even worse.

Jor-El had told him that his "Soul-Vision" would help him resolve his inner turmoil. So Clark headed back to the cave in the Rockies, almost afraid to open the entrance. When he looked at the vampires and demons with his new eyes, he recoiled. They were shrouded in a writhing darkness that twisted and coiled in a frightening way.

He didn't think colors could cause such a powerful emotional reaction, and briefly wondered again if it were some biological thing. Clark knew that what he was seeing now was true Evil, unmasked and undiluted. Yet beneath the shroud of undulating dark, he could see the familiar aura of the soul, struggling within the darkness, like an animal trapped in a tar pit.

Clark knew that these were human souls that had been trapped in limbo by their demonic hosts, and the only way to really free them was to destroy the vampire. Yet still Clark hesitated. He knew what he needed to do, but to just kill them all here, like this, it was an execution. Clark steeled himself, and nearly a hundred demons went up in flames.

Clark swallowed hard, the dust of the dead vampires and the smell of burning demon flesh causing his eyes to water and his head to spin. Clark hadn't been expecting them to scream like that. He stumbled out of the cave entrance, trying to escape the smell of burning flesh. Unfortunately, his nose was also super sensitive.

When the vampires had been destroyed, he had seen the souls within them flash brilliantly, finally free, before disappearing. Clark knew he had done the right thing, but sometimes logic, no matter how powerful, takes a back seat to emotion. He couldn't stay in that place any longer and returned to L.A., not feeling nearly as decisive as he would have liked.

* * *

Clark stood outside the front gate of the Hyperion Hotel, trying to force the somersaulting dolphins in his stomach to sit still. He hadn't really thought of what he was going to say when he finally _did_ get here. He had checked out of the motel that night, knowing he wouldn't have enough money to stay any longer, and even if he got a job, he wouldn't get paid in time. So he had found himself here. Clark wanted to help people, but he knew how out of his element he was. He needed direction and had come here for help.

'_Standing here punishing myself isn't helping anything. I may not deserve to be forgiven for what happened to Morgan Edge, but I can do everything in my power to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. I want to help people, but how do I convince _them_ of that?' _

"Hi, sorry about running out on you earlier. Look, I'm a total stranger who you've already identified as inhuman, and you have no idea about my powers or motives whatsoever…so, I was wondering if you'd be willing to put me up for the night." Yeah, not likely. But Clark's dilemma was put to rest when he noticed a sign hanging from the doorway of the hotel. When he zoomed in on the sign, what he saw forced a chuckle out of him. The sign read:

"GONE TO VEGAS BI-ATCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Clark sat down on the steps in front of the door, wondering what he was going to do now. He had gotten all excited about his whole "I'm going to help people and make the world a safer place!" mentality shift, and now here he was with nowhere to go while the heroes were on vacation.

He briefly remembered the words of Chuck the vampire. Apparently in the town of Sunnydale, California, there was all sorts of trouble brewing. It was located on some sort of portal to a hell dimension or something, called a Hellmouth. All the other demons he had interrogated had agreed that something big was going down in that little town.

"Sunnydale?" Clark asked out loud, and then he pulled a map of California out of his backpack. It wasn't very far away at all.

* * *

The town of Sunnydale, California was not really much bigger than Smallville. Despite the two towns' similarities, Sunnydale somehow seemed much more metropolitan to Clark. There were a larger variety of stores, and many more franchises, but most were mom and pop stores like in Smallville.

There also seemed to be a lot more people, and teenagers specifically, roaming around at night than in Smallville. Back home, there wasn't really anything to do after dark, but this place had a few bars and even a club called the Bronze. But Clark had a bad feeling about the place he just couldn't shake. Clark's own research had revealed that this town had the highest per-capita death rate in the U.S., higher even than Smallville's. Clark also heard a great deal more footsteps in the town than heart beats.

Clark had learned to make the vast arrays of sounds he could now perceive fade into a sort of background static, which he could process subliminally. This kept all the noises from overwhelming him, yet he could still become alert to certain sounds.

Like most people, he had a knack for picking out his own name even amongst a jumble of noises, which could be annoying whenever anyone was talking to a Clark that wasn't him, but fortunately there weren't too many in L.A. Other noises broke out of the background to him, such as gunshots, tire screeches, and fear.

Different emotions caused the voice to change in different ways, and Clark had learned to tell in an instant whether someone talking was angry, jealous, sad, or afraid. He could pull scared voices out of the jumble of noise he heard instantly, like right then.

"No! Stop!" a young woman screamed. Clark focused in on where he thought the sound was coming from while simultaneously ducking into an alley to shift to super-speed. Clark heard a sound like someone moving rocks, and then laughter. He could tell it wasn't human laughter, because the tone and the pitch were strange.

"No way out now...noooooo way out." The strange voice sent chills up Clark's spine. It was like something out of a horror movie.

"Protect me, Goddess, in thy name I supplicate myself. Take the powers from my enemy, lay him lower than the lowest field." Was that woman praying?

"Gnarl loves spells! He keeps them as pets, and they leave him alone." The creepy voice again. _Wait,_ Clark thought, _did it say...spells?_

"You may be immune to magic, but I got more than that. You want a fight?" Clark was in the woods now somewhere, and getting frustrated. It seemed like things were about to get dicey. The sound made Clark think of the acoustics in a cavern, all echoey and reverberating. It made the sounds fainter, but Clark could still hear them. Unfortunately, he was having more difficulty pinpointing the exact location.

"They left you here. No one comes to save you! They wanted _me_ to have you. Did they leave you as a gifty for me? Are you a tasty little gifty?" The voice was eerily singsong, and it would drag out vowels like a snake drags out ss.

"Stop it."

"Wouldn't they just throw you away?"

"Were they here? Were my friends really here? I heard something. Ah!" the woman cried out.

Clark decided to throw caution to the wind. Aiming for the general area Clark thought the sound was coming from, he took a leap high up into the air. He switched then to x-ray vision, searching for the person in danger.

He saw two people running through the woods, carrying a young girl between them. She seemed paralyzed. Then Clark saw a cliff and spied two figures inside it. One was a woman, and the other was...humanoid.

The woman was lying supine on the ground, and the creature was bent over her. Clark was frustrated by the time it took for him to slow down enough to actually start descending, and took off in a hurry as soon as he hit the ground, snapping a sapling in half as he accidentally brushed it with his shoulder.

He came to the entrance of the cave and saw that it was sealed. He simply burst through the rocks at the entrance and found his personal image of what the Boogeyman should look like. The creature was bent over a young, redheaded woman. Clark was on the thing before it even knew what was happening, grabbing it by the shoulder and tossing it into a wall away from the woman.

It was a very lean thing, and very boney. Clark could see its ribs clearly through its pale, yellowish flesh. It was totally bald, with long, pointed ears and a long hooked nose. Its fingers ended in menacing talons, and its eyes were an unnatural shade of yellow.

Clark switched to soul-vision, and couldn't help but quickly avert his gaze from the creature's malignant aura. Clark switched to normal vision and then blasted the creature with his heat rays, boring a hole clear through its head. It slumped to the ground, dead.

The woman behind him gasped as if she had been holding her breath and groaned in pain. He looked down at her and she crawled backward quickly before grimacing and touching the side of her stomach.

"Are you okay?" Clark asked. She looked up at him, hesitant. Clark could rationalize her fear easily enough. He had appeared out of nowhere and blasted a hole in the demon's skull; as far as she knew, he could be even worse than that creature. That didn't mean her fear didn't sting a little.

"Yeah, I'm..." she started, but another grimace cut her off.

"I'll take you to a hospital," Clark offered, but the woman shook her head.

"No, it's not that bad. They'll ask too many questions." She looked up at him again and seemed calmer.

"So...who are you?" she asked as she tried to drag herself into a sitting position. Clark looked away, but his gaze accidentally wandered over the demon corpse, which he found hard to look at, so he stared at the floor.

"Kal," he said. It was something of an impulse, but he didn't feel comfortable telling her his real name. Besides, there was a sense of power and confidence in that name.

The woman sat herself upright and began breathing deeply, her fists clenching and unclenching in pain. Clark zoomed in on the wound. The creature had left two long gashes on her stomach, and it looked like it had actually started peeling her skin off.

"Is there somewhere else I can take you?" Clark asked.

"Umm...I don't know." She looked at him as if she were trying to decide something.

"I had these friends...have. They were supposed to pick me up from the airport, but I haven't seen them in a day."

"Do you want me to take you to them?"

"No, I mean...I don't know." She looked scared.

"Is something wrong?"

"I just... I don't know if they'd, if they'd want to see me." She had said the second part under her breath, but Clark could hear her loud and clear.

"You're hurt. I'm sure whatever issue your friends might have, if they're really your friends, they'll make an exception this time."

"Yeah, maybe." She said

"That bad?" Clark asked

"I....they...something happened." She looked away, and Clark thought he recognized the weight of guilt on her. Clark knew he should get her to a hospital or something, but some other instinct told him she would be okay. She was already handling the wound better than most people. So he sat down next to her.

"What happened?" Clark asked.

She looked up at him and he could practically see the wheel in her head turning (although, if he wanted, he could've looked inside her head and seen synapses firing). They say sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger than a friend; now must have been one of those times.

"Just, a lot of stuff went wrong. Everyone was in a real bad place and Tara, she..." The woman started crying, and it seemed to hurt her, but she couldn't stop. "She was shot, and I was just _so_ angry. I tried to bring her back...but I couldn't and...I wanted revenge, I wanted to find Warren. The power was too much for me, I couldn't control it. Oh god..." she sobbed harder now. "I killed him! I ripped the skin right off his body!"

Clark was stunned. He cycled through reactions like a roulette wheel. Shock, anger, horror, but he heard something in her voice, guilt, remorse, and Clark felt that maybe, he understood.

"Who is Tara?" he asked when her sobs had softened.

"The love of my life," she sniffled.

"How long ago was this?"

"A few months ago, almost half a year."

"So, you killed this guy, then what?"

"I tried to destroy the world."

There was a pause in the conversation as Clark was taken completely by surprise. He certainly hadn't been expecting that.

"Wow," he turned and looked her in the eyes. "Why?"

"I had gotten a whole bunch of power from Giles...it connected me, to everything. At first it was incredible, I'd never felt such a rush. But then it turned bad, I could feel everyone's pain, and their fear, and their sorrow. I guess, in my warped head, I figured I'd be doing everyone a favor by ending it."

"But you didn't, otherwise I think I'd know."

"My friend showed up in time to talk me out of it...you must think I'm horrible."

"Not really," Clark said.

She just snorted, like she didn't believe him.

"I have very good ears. I can hear pretty much everything that's happening in an entire city. When I first got that power, I was overwhelmed. I could hear everyone crying for help, screaming in pain, just being all around miserable. I thought I was going to go crazy. I had something too, something that made me feel strong, that made me make decisions I wouldn't ever normally make. It was so hard not to fall back on that thing, to just make myself stop caring."

The woman looked at him. " But you didn't try to end the world, did you?"

"No," Clark admitted. He smiled at her, and she smiled a bit in return. "Okay, so you tried to destroy the world. Your friend came and managed to convince you not to. Then what happened?" Clark asked.

"I went to England with Giles, he's a sort of mentor to me and my friends, to help me learn to control my powers. I was over there for the summer, and just got back yesterday. They were supposed to meet me, but I couldn't find them. Then this thing killed someone and I had to go looking for it and, here we are. Thanks for saving me by the way...how did you-"

"It's just something I can do," Clark noncommittally replied. Changing the subject quickly, he added, "I could probably find your friends for you and take you there."

"I don't know if that's a good idea."

"You're scared?"

She nodded at him. "I mean, what if they won't take me back? What if..."

"What if you don't deserve to _be_ taken back?" Clark finished. The woman's eyes shifted downward. Clark felt that he and this woman were on very similar wavelengths, and he wanted to help her. Yet he wasn't exactly the poster child for emotional stability. What advice could he possibly give? Jor-El's words came back to him and he said, "So, even if your friends forgive you, you can't really forgive yourself?"

She nodded.

"Then, don't." Clark continued.

She looked at him, clearly not expecting that.

"You know what you did was wrong, and you feel bad about that. Let that help keep you on the right path. If you feel yourself falling back, just remember how you feel now, and maybe it'll help. As for your friends... you can't really know how things will turn out until you go see them, can you? I know you're scared, and it's tempting to not face your problems, but how long can you just leave things up in the air like this?"

"I guess you have a point..."

"Besides, they seem pretty worried about you to me." He smiled at her confused look.

"They're coming, to rescue you."

"They are? How do you know?"

Clark pointed at his ears.

"I told you, really good ears." He got up.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"You'll be fine now, don't worry." As he headed to the exit, he heard her call after him.

"My name is Willow, by the way, Rosenberg."

Clark turned to her. "Nice to meet you, Willow Rosenberg." Then he was gone.

Clark stuck around long enough to watch the girl's friends, who he had seen carting another, much younger girl through the woods before, show up. It turned out that some sort of magical thing had prevented Willow and her friends from perceiving each other. Magic…Clark couldn't help but shake his head at the insanity he had stumbled into.

'_Then again, I'm an alien,' _he thought. Once he was sure the situation was secure, Clark sped away.

Near the outskirts of the town, Clark found an old, abandoned church and figured it would be a good place to spend the night. He even found a touch of humorous irony in his choice for lodgings; after all, the name Clark, French in origin, ment clergyman.

Clark stretched himself out on a pew, using his backpack as a pillow. He had saved lots of people in his life, but tonight with that woman had been different. He hadn't simply shown up, pulled her out of the metaphorical (though occasionally literal) fire, then sped off. He had helped her find courage, and helped her help herself. He hadn't just saved her life, he had given her hope. Clark felt better at that moment than he had in a long, long, time (Red K influence not included). Then, he saw something out of the corner of his eye but when he turned to look, there was nothing there. He eventually drifted to sleep, convinced his mind was playing tricks on him...but for a second, he was sure he had heard Morgan Edge's voice saying, "Don't get too comfortable kid...we're only getting started.


End file.
